Reading Hospital named one of Healthgrades America’s 50 Best Hospitals in U.S.; St. Luke’s Bethlehem named 100 Best Hospitals

Reading Hospital today announced that for the first time it has been named one of Healthgrades America’s 50 Best Hospitals, which places the hospital among the top 1% of nearly 4,500 hospitals nationwide. 

This award recognizes Reading Hospital for its consistent, year-over-year superior clinical performance, according to Healthgrades. 

Reading Hospital also achieved the 2022 Healthgrades Stroke Care Excellence Award and the Healthgrades Pulmonary Care Excellence Award.  

St. Luke’s University Health System’s Bethlehem Campus received Healthgrades Top 100 Hospital Award, placing it among the top two % of hospitals nationwide, according to Healthgrades. The campus also received the organization’s Top 250 Best Hospital Award. 

“The team at Reading Hospital strives to provide the highest quality care to every patient,” said P. Sue Perrotty, Tower Health president and CEO. “For the past five years Reading earned the ‘America’s 100 Best Hospitals’ designation. I am so proud that, even during an ongoing and relentless global pandemic, the teams continued their dedicated efforts and can now proudly state they are among the top one percent of hospitals in the country. This is a prestigious recognition and I commend everyone at the hospital for the important role they play in caring for our patients.”   

Healthgrades is part of RV Health, a Red Ventures business and assesses hospitals for patient outcomes in a variety of disciplines. 

“Being among America’s 50 Best Hospitals is the pinnacle achievement from Healthgrades,” said Dr. Brad Bowman, chief medical officer and head of Data Science at Healthgrades. “These hospitals are truly leading the nation and setting the standard for care delivery. We commend Reading Hospital for its dedication to patient care and committing themselves to keeping their communities safe.”  

Also in 2022, Healthgrades recognized Reading with five 5-star ratings (i.e., “better than expected” outcomes) in areas such as total hip replacement surgery, cardiac valve surgery, treatment of stroke, treatment of pneumonia, and treatment of heart failure, a Reading Hospital statement said. 

Recipients of this year’s Healthgrades’ 50 Best Hospitals are being recognized for overall clinical excellence and providing top-quality care across multiple specialty lines and areas. During the 2022 study period (MedPAR Fiscal Years 2018-2020), these hospitals showed superior performance in clinical outcomes for patients in the Medicare population across at least 21 of the most common inpatient conditions and procedures — as measured by objective performance data (risk-adjusted mortality and in-hospital complications), according to the hospital statement. 

Ron Nutting, MD, Reading Hospital’s chief medical officer said, “We are humbled to achieve national recognition for our team’s relentless efforts in focusing on our mission to deliver high-quality care to the community. This achievement is a testament to the patient-centered dedication, resilience, and creativity of our multidisciplinary staff of physicians, advanced practice professionals, nurses, therapists, and support staff who truly function as one team driven to provide to best possible care for our community.” 

Nutting cites improved transitions of care following discharge from the inpatient hospital environment to the outpatient arena. In addition to maintaining post-discharge follow-up calls for certain high-risk diagnoses, the team initiated a post-discharge transition-of-care clinic for patients without access to primary care. These activities reduce the likelihood of readmission to the hospital and death following a patient discharge. The second initiative is regarding our Sepsis performance team’s ongoing efforts to reduce the mortality due to sepsis by appreciably reducing the time from a diagnosis of sepsis to delivery of lifesaving antibiotics. 

From 2018 through 2020, patients treated in hospitals achieving the Healthgrades award, had, on average, a 21.7 percent lower risk of dying than if they were treated in hospitals that did not receive the award, as measured across 19 rated conditions and procedures where mortality is the outcome, according to Reading Hospital. 

With tools like hospital ratings and awards, Healthgrades helps consumers make confident healthcare decisions by enabling the evaluation and comparison of hospital performance to find the highest quality care.  

St. Luke’s Bethlehem Campus also received awards for the Top 100 Hospitals for critical care, gastrointestinal care, gastrointestinal surgery, stroke care, pulmonary care, cardiac care and stroke surgery, according to Healthgrades.